4 ms·

Hey look, another programming language shitting the bed by virtue of terrible naming. If you're not google, name your garbage something without 2 million exist

Hey look, another programming language shitting the bed by virtue of terrible naming. If you're not google, name your garbage something without 2 million existing google results.

pmoriarty 7y ago
While I too am frustrated at all the languages out there with common names which yield too many false positives in search results, you're really not going to convince many people by insulting them.. especially when some of the most popular and trendy languages in the world (like java, python, ruby, go) have really common names. Honestly, I don't know what could change this trend. Apparently, software authors care more about having a catchy name over an easily searchable one.
- phaedryx 7y ago
  To be fair, Java (1995), Python (1990), and Ruby (1995) were all created before Google (1998). In a time of search engines I think that more care should be taken for naming things. Clojure is an excellent example of Rich Hickey taking the time to think about the name.
- bequestry 7y ago
  It's already the name of a popular drug that's been around for half a century, with signs pointing towards increasing usage and legalization. There's thousands of research papers on "Ecstasy" already, and millions of people searching for "tips on ecstasy" or "how to use ecstasy". Whomever named this language is a moron.
  - cpurdy 7y ago
    "Whomever [sic] named this language is a moron." That would be this moron. I would have chosen a different name, but they were all taken.
    - bequestry 7y ago
      Cmon man... there's loads of names out there that can be put on resume's without raising eyebrows.
clumsysmurf 7y ago
It seems XTC is an alias for Ecstasy which should be somewhat google-able.
- riffraff 7y ago
  there are two spellings (Ecstasy, Ecstacy) in the article alone, and XTC would be a third one, not to mention the other likely misspellings like Extasy. And, am I the only one old enough to remember that this is how people called MDMA for a long time? Not the best association. so, I think it's a pretty bad name, but OTOH, google & co are smart enough these days.
  - abathur 7y ago
    And a stock symbol. :)
- empath75 7y ago
  There’s the band and the drug.
imglorp 7y ago
Eh, they're not immune: they use "go" in speech but "golang" in search, domain names etc.
dang 7y ago
Please don't be a jerk in Hacker News comments, regardless of how strongly you feel about programming language names. We want people who are doing interesting work to be able to come here and get interesting reactions to their work. Then they have a reason to stick around. Thoughtful critique is fine, but there's no need to be an asshole ("hey look", "shitting the bed", "your garbage") and it break the site guidelines badly: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Would you mind reviewing those and sticking to them when posting here? We've unfortunately had to warn you not to attack other users or post flamebait before, as well. For disclosure's sake, I once got to hang out with Cameron at a conference many years ago and can tell you that he's exactly the sort of user HN needs more of: someone with vast experience in the computing world and countless great insights and stories.

Hey look, another programming language shitting the bed by virtue of terrible naming. If you're not google, name your garbage something without 2 million existing google results.

pmoriarty 7y ago

While I too am frustrated at all the languages out there with common names which yield too many false positives in search results, you're really not going to convince many people by insulting them.. especially when some of the most popular and trendy languages in the world (like java, python, ruby, go) have really common names. Honestly, I don't know what could change this trend. Apparently, software authors care more about having a catchy name over an easily searchable one.

phaedryx 7y ago
To be fair, Java (1995), Python (1990), and Ruby (1995) were all created before Google (1998). In a time of search engines I think that more care should be taken for naming things. Clojure is an excellent example of Rich Hickey taking the time to think about the name.
bequestry 7y ago
It's already the name of a popular drug that's been around for half a century, with signs pointing towards increasing usage and legalization. There's thousands of research papers on "Ecstasy" already, and millions of people searching for "tips on ecstasy" or "how to use ecstasy". Whomever named this language is a moron.
- cpurdy 7y ago
  "Whomever [sic] named this language is a moron." That would be this moron. I would have chosen a different name, but they were all taken.
  - bequestry 7y ago
    Cmon man... there's loads of names out there that can be put on resume's without raising eyebrows.

clumsysmurf 7y ago

It seems XTC is an alias for Ecstasy which should be somewhat google-able.

riffraff 7y ago
there are two spellings (Ecstasy, Ecstacy) in the article alone, and XTC would be a third one, not to mention the other likely misspellings like Extasy. And, am I the only one old enough to remember that this is how people called MDMA for a long time? Not the best association. so, I think it's a pretty bad name, but OTOH, google & co are smart enough these days.
- abathur 7y ago
  And a stock symbol. :)
empath75 7y ago
There’s the band and the drug.

imglorp 7y ago

Eh, they're not immune: they use "go" in speech but "golang" in search, domain names etc.

dang 7y ago

Please don't be a jerk in Hacker News comments, regardless of how strongly you feel about programming language names. We want people who are doing interesting work to be able to come here and get interesting reactions to their work. Then they have a reason to stick around. Thoughtful critique is fine, but there's no need to be an asshole ("hey look", "shitting the bed", "your garbage") and it break the site guidelines badly: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Would you mind reviewing those and sticking to them when posting here? We've unfortunately had to warn you not to attack other users or post flamebait before, as well. For disclosure's sake, I once got to hang out with Cameron at a conference many years ago and can tell you that he's exactly the sort of user HN needs more of: someone with vast experience in the computing world and countless great insights and stories.